It seems that the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) has more on its plate and is biting more than it can chew. Its work is presently being stretched by the new vehicle licensing system, the Plumtree-Mutare dualisation project and the takeover of the tolling points from Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority). Not surprisingly, the administration came under heavy criticism from the motoring public over the confusion surrounding the deadline for the vehicle licensing system. Last week, The Sunday Mail Business correspondent, AFRICA MOYO (AM), engaged Zinara chief executive officer Mr Frank Chitukutuku (FC) to shed light on what they are up to.

AM: Zinara has courted a lot of negative publicity in the last month over announcements on the introduction of the new vehicle licence disc. In your view, was the criticism justified?
FC: I am equally concerned about what happened. However, let me start off by saying there is nothing wrong with criticism. It depends on how you view the whole new computerisation of vehicle licensing. There are those motorists who licensed their vehicles way before the end of May and obviously they fail to understand the media onslaught on Zinara, while those that have not licensed their vehicles view the so-called negative publicity as justified.
You will agree with me that whichever way you look at the “perceivably” negative publicity, from media reports to editorial comments and cartoons in various media, the good thing is that there is now an awareness of Zinara as an organisation.

However, what we will do, which is a continuous process anyway, is to educate the public about Zinara’s role, revenue streams and how we channel the revenue we collect towards road maintenance through road authorities. We are fund managers and not a road authority.
Get me right, there is the Department of Roads, which is responsible for the maintenance and rehabilitation of State roads; the District Development Fund (DDF), which is responsible for the maintenance of all rural roads that fall under them; Rural District Councils (RDCs) and Urban Councils, which carry out maintenance work on roads within their jurisdiction —that is to construct, maintain and rehabilitate every road according to road programmes approved by Zinara.

AM: How has the negative publicity affected your discharge of duties as chief executive officer, and Zinara’s image in general?
FC: I am discharging my duties effectively and I am not moved by publicity: be it “good” or “bad”. Leadership is not swayed by external circumstances, but it is guided by principles.

If management of organisations was governed by popular opinion, there would be no need to plan. Leadership is about what you believe is right and standing by it. What has to be done has to be done and the right thing obviously is being done.
I perceive the motoring public as very responsible citizens who will pay their dues. The world over, people pay their bills, insure their vehicles and pay their vehicle licence fees.

Here in Zimbabwe, we need to change our culture of being reluctant to pay for services, yet we are quick to complain of poor service delivery. This culture is retrogressive. We cannot develop our road network when we refuse to pay for the very same road we use. Roads are an asset to any economy and come at a cost. Indeed, even Jesus Christ, the son of God, said, “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar”.

AM: Given the chaos that characterised the changeover to the new licence disc, did you ever think of leaving your job?
FC: Not at all. There was no reason to leave my job. I had to be there to listen to the public and work with my management team to ensure that the changeover was smooth. I, however, find satisfaction in the fact that the whole new computerisation of the vehicle licence discs is taking place during my tenure.

The motoring public does not seem to understand that there are benefits in this new system. In fact, there are more benefits — in the best interest of the motoring public — than the chaos that has been hyped by the media. The motoring public was being short-changed by bogus insurance brokers who were selling fake third party insurance in the streets and fake vehicle licence discs. Another important issue to note is that the queues that you saw were as a result of all vehicle licences expiring on May 31 2012. Now that we have computerised, we have provided flexibility to the motoring public.

There are now licence discs ranging from the minimum of a term, which is four months, five months, six months and seven months. We also provide for eight months, which is two terms; nine months, 10 months, 11 months and 12 months, which is one year.
Now, we have a situation where expiry dates of vehicle licences are staggered. You will not have the motoring public licensing their vehicles all at once.

This system was designed to bring convenience to our motoring public. Now that we are capturing data of a particular vehicle in our system, the turnaround time will be reduced during the next licensing period.

We have opened a bulk licensing centre at Zinara head office, which handles those with 10 books and above so that they don’t take up more time licensing.
It is important to note that this system is not bureaucratic.

AM: There were indications from Zinara that the new vehicle licence will not be counterfeited. We understand there are numerous fake licence discs on the market, especially in Harare. What is your comment on this?
FC: The system is highly computerised and the Zimbabwe Republic Police will be out not only to enforce vehicle licensing but to also check, using hi-tech equipment acquired by Zinara, if the vehicle data encrypted in the barcodes of the licence discs are authentic. It is a criminal offence to forge security documents and the motoring public must be warned accordingly.

We have to move towards being responsible citizens and contribute towards the development of our own country.

AM: What is the current vehicle population and can you also tell us the number you have licensed so far?
FC: About 250 000 vehicles have been licensed so far. When talking of the country’s vehicle population, the public must not confuse the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) figure of 800 000 as relating to light passenger vehicles only. That figure relates to individually owned light motor vehicles, light motor vehicles belonging to public institutions, Government, and company vehicles.

Then under that same figure of 800 000 you have heavy vehicles and heavy trailers and small trailers, tractors and motorcycles. However, under our new system, we will be able to have an updated database of Zimbabwe’s vehicle population.

It could be less than 800 000. The motoring public must exempt their vehicles if they are not on the road due to breakdowns.
This helps them to avoid paying penalties for not licensing when they finally get their vehicles back on the road.

However, again, if a vehicle is not licensed for two years, the Registrar of the Central Vehicle Registry has the power to deregister that vehicle. At Zinara we exempt vehicles that are not on the road and we maintain a database of such vehicles. Let me say, this system

will give an accurate figure of vehicles that are on our roads and the vehicle classes: be they light motor vehicles or heavy vehicles or trailers or tractors and even motorcycles.

AM: In your view, are we likely to have all vehicles registered by month-end given that there are no longer long queues of motorists purchasing licence discs?
FC: The Honourable Minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development, Mr Nicholas Goche, is on record saying motorists must play their part and be responsible enough to, first of all, insure their vehicles and license them.

I am equally optimistic that we will have all vehicles licensed by month-end. The period that we have provided for them to license is adequate to ensure that that they all license.

AM: Any chance that the deadline might be extended if motorists fail to beat the June 30 2012 deadline?
FC: That is now a policy issue and Zinara has no mandate to override the law and grant any further extensions. Honourable Minister Goche has made it clear that the media have a pivotal role to play in advising the motoring public not to wait until month-end to license their vehicles in anticipation of further extensions.

The June 30 2012 deadline was in reference to Section 36 of the Vehicle Registration and Licensing Act, which states explicitly that a motorist will accrue penalties if they fail to license on or before the last day of the month (June 30).

AM: Some motorists say while they are playing their part by licensing their vehicles, road authorities are not playing their part of maintaining roads. Tell us more on this?
FC: I will give you a yes and no answer because what people may quickly notice is major work that will be carried out on a particular road.
Now, given the age of our roads, road authorities are doing their best to address this. Some of our roads are more than 40 years old, yet their lifespan was at most 20 years. That is why when you patch a pothole today, tomorrow, another pothole opens up next to the patched one.

Motorists may see as if road authorities are not playing their part, but most of them are doing their best. What is required is periodic maintenance on most of the roads. We cannot currently fund all road authorities at once.
We have cases of road authorities who did not do quite well with the funds they received from us last year. We are working closely with them to correct where they went wrong so that the motoring public is not inconvenienced by poor roads.

AM: We understand some municipalities and councils are abusing funds you allocate them for road maintenance. What measures are you taking to rein in such unscrupulous municipalities and councils?

FC: Zinara manages public funds and we have a situation where the motoring public, justifiably so, vent out their anger on us. That concerns not only me, but our parent ministry as well, and we are working flat out to bring sanity. You may have noticed that last year we suspended some councils from participating in Zinara programmes for failure to account for funds allocated to them. However, most of them are doing well.

AM: So far how much has Zinara allocated for road maintenance?
FC: We have set aside $33 million for routine maintenance for 2012. This will be used by the four road authorities that I mentioned earlier to maintain the roads that fall under their jurisdiction. We have also budgeted about $17 million for periodic maintenance.

However, these amounts are not adequate. $2 billion is required to rehabilitate our total road network which is made up of 88 000 kilometres of surfaced, gravel and earth roads.

May I bring it to the attention of the motoring public that 20 percent of our total road network is surfaced. This includes State roads and roads that fall within the jurisdiction of urban councils.
The remaining 80 percent is either gravel or earth roads. Again, it is very expensive to maintain surfaced roads. However, with the little resources we are putting together, we

are doing our best to ensure that every road authority gets a piece of the cake.

Depending on what interventions are being applied on a road, it costs anything between $200 000 to $400 000 to rehabilitate just one kilometre of surfaced road, while construction of a new road costs anything between $700 000 to $1 million a kilometre — of course, depending on the design of that road. Given what our economy went through in the last decade, including sanctions that led to failure to access credit lines, our roads have deteriorated and we are doing our best to source funds elsewhere and through our own revenue streams to rehabilitate our roads.

AM: Critics say you appear to be spending a lot of money on top-of-the-range vehicles instead of road maintenance. How do you react to these allegations?
FC: I like your question. Critics say we appear to be, but the reality is we are not. I don’t know when a basic Toyota Hilux double cab for use by senior management, or Ford Ranger super cabs and Mazda B2500 vehicles for use by our technical staff, became top of the range vehicles.

When purchasing vehicles, we consider the lifespan of the vehicle and whether it can do the work. My understanding of a top-of-the-range vehicle is that it is the uppermost brand and the vehicles that both my management and technical team drive are very basic but with off-road capabilities given the nature of our work as a road administration.

Again, Zinara does not even have a sufficient fleet for the smooth running of its operations. It would be morally bankrupt for me and the Zinara board to spend public funds on top-of-the- range vehicles when we have a maintenance backlog of the road network that requires a minimum of $2 billion.
AM: Earlier this year, you indicated that Zinara will be taking over tolling on tollgates later this year. What is the position now?

FC: We will announce the date shortly after all the formalities with our parent ministry and the Ministry of Finance have been finalised. We are still on course.
AM: In the event you take over tolling points, how prepared are you to ensure that you improve on areas that Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) has been struggling with?
FC: Zimra has been doing a good job, considering that they are using a manual system. Therefore, even if we take over the manual system, we will face the same challenges Zimra is facing.

Hence, our thrust to computerise every revenue collection system, including the tollgates. You have seen how we have put in place a computerised system for vehicle licensing. The same will follow on all tollgates to ensure that we improve on revenue collection for the benefit of the motoring public.

AM: How far have you gone with dualising the Plumtree/Harare/ Mutare highway?
FC: There has been satisfactory progress on the Infralink Project and we are still within our target of completing the stretch in 36 months.
Some sections in Matabeleland between Plumtree border, Bulawayo and outside Bulawayo have been dressed with a new surface.

Again, you may have noticed works that are taking place on the Msasa to Goromonzi turn-off. I want to commend the Department of Roads, which is dualising that portion of the Road, for the efficiency and progress they are showing.

I am informed that by this time next year, we may be driving on that road. It would be a relief to motorists who use that road as there is serious traffic congestion during peak hours.

But, overall, the dualisation of the whole route from Plumtree to Mutare is well on course. Additional funding to achieve the dualisation is being finalised with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and very soon you will see more work on the road.

AM: When should the country expect proper tollgate structures on the roads?
FC: By the last quarter of the year, the first ones will be seen on the Infralink Project route.

These ones will also be computerised and similar to the ones you find on the N1 Highway from Musina to Johannesburg. Other tollgates countrywide will follow the same model but in phases.
AM: How much money has been invested in the new toll structures’ project?
FC: There is no definite figure as yet. That figure will be available when the first toll plaza is completed.